Now that the summer is over and live poker is done with for the foreseeable future(unless I go to london) I've been back on the online grind. The action isn't what it always was but 6 max games are getting off and plo is booming. I don't really have much experience with plo but it's fun and seems profitable to learn and toy with some midstakes games. There are lots of differences to no limit but there are certainly a few subtle similarities in my opinion thus far. It is definitely a much more complex game, likely because of the added combinations of hands preflop and the vastly different equity match ups in all in situations. I'm sure this is pretty novice plo speak but I'm just learning it now. Post flop stuff is also a lot trickier but the most valuable thing I've learned so far is that you generally have more equity post flop than you think. Anyways, life away from poker is great and I'm happier than I've ever been. Here is a cool hand I played the other day.

Full Tilt, $25/$50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $13,217
BTN: $20,049

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $150, Hero raises to $450, BTN calls $300

Flop: ($900) (2 Players)
Hero bets $625, BTN calls $625

Turn: ($2,150) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1,650, Hero calls $1,650

River: ($5,450) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $3,750, Hero calls $3,750

Results: $12,950 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed and WON $12,949.50 (+$6,524.50 NET)
BTN showed and LOST (-$6,450 NET)

I write this after a long day at the pool where I consumed an excessive amount of alcohol in a short period of time mixed with dancing and boiling hot desert sun, and I look back upon what was my 2nd WSOP with disappointment. I think I played great throughout and am happy with myself that I was able to remain confident in my play and not begin to doubt myself just because live poker is soul crushing when you wake up and lose day after day. That said, it was definitely the best summer of my life aside from poker. We had so much fun around the house, going out, and just generally causing shenanigans. I really am going to miss everyone once they all leave and life becomes much slower for better or worse. At this point only a few people are left from the many that were here at the beginning and my family has replaced them. Currently my brother is out here and both my parents are out here for a week. It's nice to have them around, they make my house feel like a home and I don't get to see them very often anymore. Furthermore they accept me for who I am which is nice - I truly can't stress enough how incredible it is to have supportive parents in an industry that some people despise.

So, even though poker has not been amazing lately, I am happier than I've ever been and am very much looking forward to the future and of course WSOP 2011. Good luck fellas.

Yawn. That is how I feel about WSOP '10 so far. Fortunately I haven't been getting teased much with only 1 out of 11 cashes, but I am feeling disappointed about what's going on. I ran into a friend today who's having similar results as myself and we shared a laugh about how running bad in live tournaments makes you feel sort of delusional. It makes you question your play and creates all sorts of uncertainty in your mind. Really though, I'm just confused about how good I must have run last year to cash 5/10 events and have a 2nd, 18th, 25th, 32nd, and 55th. I'm certainly happy I had a chance to run that good in my first ever series, I just want to taste it again ;p I know I can and still have lots of good events to look forward to.

In other news I'm having a great time this summer and I've met lots of cool new people that have changed my life for the better as a result of living with a big crew. Truck dan, as he is often called, has not done any more damage around Las Vegas in the form of truck sex or WSOP domination but has been leading the team in drinking by quite a decent margin. And for that I applaud him. The nickname that is truck dan has become quite prominent which makes me all sorts of happy. I'll leave you with an anecdote Dani described to me the other day, 'So this german guy at my table is making small talk with me and asks me where I'm living this summer. I tell him over at Chewy's place and he says in a thick german accent OH so you must know about Dan and the truck then.' EPIC.

If the first day of the WSOP is any indication as to how the rest of it is going to be I have very very high hopes. I played the $1k today and although I was drinking all day live poker is very tolerable when you clown around and manage to own everyone at the same time. I'll be doing a video blog for pokernews.com with updates on how bad I'm killin it every so often so check the current and future ones out. I'm playing the $1500 tomorrow and really tired but needed to let ya'll in on an awesome story. http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-blog...-girl-in-truck

To an epic summer!

Whattup leggo folk?! The scoops rounded out in an uninteresting fashion, though we had some good sweats as both Dan and I were deep in the 10k. I ended up min-cashing and Dan came 16th or something. Regardless I thought scoops were great and putting in some serious online tournament volume before the series begins certainly was a good idea. Something about being away from online tournaments for some period of time and coming back gives me a great feeling for the summer.

In non-poker news, we threw our housewarming party and got an awesome turnout. I'd say we had 75ish people in and out throughout the evening and the crowd was super cool. It was nice to get acquainted with even more vegas locals and see the ones I haven't in some time. The shenanigans continued with the brunson beer pong invitational which is definitely as, if not more ridiculous than it sounds. It's held at a bar in downtown vegas right next to Freemont street and was basically just an all day drinking event. Everyone showed up around 1:30-2 and action kicked off around 2:30. The king and I won our first 2 rounds pretty easy but got smashed in the third against Tony and our buddy Leo, who was eventually the team to win it all. Leo is an absurd beer pong player, I think on any given shot he's a 2:1 favorite, and Tony is obviously no chump so congrats to them.

I'll also be updating my twitter throughout the summer with chip counts or whatever good is going on, and since it's now linked to the leggo facebook fan page you guys can check out everyones updates in one spot. I'm going to play the premiere $1k to the series this Sunday in all likelihood and get the series off to a good start. Peace fellas!

Since my win at caesars I've been blanking scoops real hard and losing at cash. I had a legit day today though getting 10th in the 3k 4max which turned out to be an unbelievably fun tournament and coolering some guys in cash. When I busted I had ~275 hands won without showdown for the tournament of ~900 hands played and the avg stack was something like 140bbs. The structure throughout was almost too good, but really ideal for a skill packed online tournament. I think scoop structures are actually the best ever for online tournaments, but simply not practical for day to day because of how long it takes(tournament started at 2pm with 5k 10-20 and I busted at 12am for a 100k pot at 400-800 lol).

On another note, I became a full tilt red pro today so now I stand out in the chat box. Hopefully I get both my avatar and first commercial soon. I also played the doubles poker championship the past few days and had a super good time, so check that out in mid July when it airs. The format is really cool mostly because it's totally innovative and great for TV, but I think I enjoy variants of hold'em more than most, evidenced by my strong background in and creation of merkle. The structure on the other hand is way fast, but somewhat necessary for how long it would take if it weren't done like this. It could be really cool to have a multitable tournament with similar ideas, and could even potentially be done online at some point. Honestly though, the future of online poker is so hard to speculate about because the sky is the limit when it comes to the possibilities.

Greetings loyal followers. I come to you with great news today as I have just scooped up the caesars wsopc $5k for 190 dimes! It was a real fun tournament and I actually kind of got owned(maybe the cards?) HU possibly, but eventually prevailed in a SIX hour session. Playing live hu tournament poker for 6 hours in what is essentially an 85k sitngo is quite absurd. Eventually when we finished it was 30k-60k and there was 3.6m in play. I punked some guys today, and overall ran v good in all in situations which is very important. They gave me a ring for the win, and as the TD is giving it to me I snap drop it, but sort of catch it in my arm, but then eventually can't catch it and it falls on the ground and hits the chair. It was hilarious, and awesome, and in the end the ring was fine. Here's the write up on pokernews: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2010/0...-gold-8233.htm.

KISS THE RING BITCHES!!!

everywhere I look around. Every sight, and every sound. I just got back from my good friends Starkey and Tiff's wedding where we all had an awesome time, mostly consisting of eating, drinking and dancing(excess amounts of all). I'm really happy for both of them cause they're a great couple and I love em both.

I'll be spending some or all of Sunday here in Indiana before heading back to Vegas where I'll be greeted by Mr. Bond18 as he arrives tomorrow morning to stay for an indefinite amount of time. I am real excited for him to move in because unlike me he is a super active guy that has rigid schedules in his life and pursues his goals vigorously, where I'm much more unorganized and take things 1 day after the next. At the same time though, he's extremely personable and very laid back. Given the time we've spent together in the past I expect we'll get along extremely well as roommates. With that being said, the high stakes action continues to brew and as always I come prepared with some funny hands for my loyal readers.

Part 1: When calling goes wrong

Full Tilt, $100/$200 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $24,399.50
BTN: $61,191

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $600, Hero raises to $1,800, BTN calls $1,200

Flop: ($3,600) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $2,200, Hero calls $2,200

Turn: ($8,000) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $5,000, Hero calls $5,000

River: ($18,000) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $18,000, Hero calls $15,399.50 and is All-In

Results: $48,799 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero mucked and LOST (-$24,199.50 NET)
BTN showed and WON $48,798.50 (+$24,499 NET)

Part 2: When calling goes oh so right

Full Tilt, $25/$50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $13,438
BTN: $11,429.50

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $150, Hero calls $100

Flop: ($300) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $277, Hero calls $277

Turn: ($854) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $854, Hero calls $854

River: ($2,562) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $3,999, Hero calls $3,999

Results: $10,560 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed and WON $10,559.50 (+$5,329.50 NET)
BTN showed and LOST (-$5,255 NET)

Take care fellas!

that being said, spring in Las Vegas is like the dead of summer in New York, and summer in Vegas is, well, way fucking hotter than that. The weather is getting better day by day though and I'm looking very much forward to the summer and the wsop. In the mean time however, the wpt championship main event begins tomorrow, and last year this was the first big live tournament I'd ever played. I managed to get 13th and had a real solid jump start to my live poker career. Tomorrow, I will look to begin improving upon that. Today I began the final table of the $5k prelim 3rd or 4th in chips but busted in a huge flip(~500k of the 1.8m chips) in 9th for an un-exciting $8300. Given I didn't scoop it I'm real happy my good friend randallin decided to, so congrats to him.

As I mentioned in my previous blog I've been playing lots of poker lately. Here is another cool hand I played recently: Full Tilt, $100/$200 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $25,286
BTN: $54,605.50

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $600, Hero raises to $1,800, BTN calls $1,200

Flop: ($3,600) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1,999, Hero calls $1,999

Turn: ($7,598) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $4,888, Hero calls $4,888

River: ($17,374) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $45,918.50 and is All-In, Hero calls $16,599 and is All-In

Results: $50,572 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed and WON $50,571.50 (+$25,485.50 NET)
BTN showed and LOST (-$25,186 NET)

I also finished up season 2 of True Blood and feel pretty whatever about the show. At one point I was pretty gripped to it and was enjoying it a lot but the plot got sort of boring and the season was tied up in the way it was pretty much assumed it would. I am in love with the main character though so I'm for sure going to watch s3 when it begins airing. I'm also enjoying s3 of breaking bad and s6 of high stakes poker(especially excited for tomorrows episode where the infamous Phil Galfond gambles it up). A new hbo show called Treme written by the creator of 'the wire' and casted by some of the same cast premiered last week and also seems kind of cool so I'll be watching that as well. That's all I've got for now ladies and gentlemen, time to rest up. Peace!